MMPR Q&A - 1995 VERSION Copyright Paul Matthews, Australia, December 1995 No part of this document may be sold or distributed without permission from the author. at paulmat@ibm.net. Synopsis: It's been 15 months since the Power Rangers were interviewed at the Command Center. Since that time Angel Grove has seen villains, fights and changes to the Power Rangers. There has been much water under the bridge. Lets again go inside the Command Center and line up the team with Zordon and pop some more questions to them. Date : 12th October 1995. Location : MMPR Command Center Present : Zordon, Billy, Tommy, Aisha, Catherine, Alpha. Q - Why couldn't the others be here? A - Tommy Adam and Rocky are helping painting a mural on Ernie's carpark wall. They promised their time before you called us. Sorry. The'll probably be over later on this evening. Q - What happened to Jason, Trini and Zack? A - Billy I think you know that already. Circumstances changed and so did three members of the team. Recently Catherine has joined us to replace Kim as the Pink Ranger. Q - Can you give us a brief rundown of the changes that have occurred in your operation since we last met? A - Billy Weeel lets see. You may remember from last time that we were working on replacing the Zords. Thats now happened three times! The emergence of Lord Zedd forced Zordon to play his hand earlier in remodelling the zords. A - Tommy At more or less the same time, I was having all sorts of trouble retaining the powers of the Green Ranger. Eventually it was necessary to put the Dragonzord on ice permanently to ensure it couldn't be used by the enemy. It's still there. Alpha's forever trying to think up ways of using it, but there arent any. a - Billy The new Zords were all modelled of the original ones, using the same element scheme software. About the same time Zordon an Alpha were working on a way of creating a new Ranger and linking it to the grid. He kept us in the dark for a while, but we eventually found out it was Tommy. A - Zordon Once we had been successful in producing a new Ranger, we were capable of developng a completely new Zord for him - the Tigerzord. The element scheme is esentially a carbon copy of the mothballed Dragonzord. I was amazed at just how well it worked. The success of that venture has led to many more discoveries. Alpha and I were just beginning to believe we really understood it all when Ivan came along and that was the end of our Morphing Grid as we knew it. Now we are pretty much back where we were before - learning about how the Ninjetti powers were able to invoke a restoration in our power ranger scheme but linked to the Nathadian Grid. To confuse the issue further we now have Ninjor, who I knew a very long time ago. He's a fine warrior but rather secretive. His catch-cry is that he can't be a miracle worker if everyone knows his tricks. Typical Ninjor. It's taking us a while to work the whole lot out, because the Rangers now have three separate and yet linked power sources from which they draw. The good news is that unlike before, these are all almost totally independent of the enemy. Q - And the new Zords? A - Zordon As Billy said, the zords were remodelled as a virtual analog teleport overlay on the old ones. Thats why the Rangers retained their old creature identities. When Ivan destroyed this Command Center he totally obliterated the morphing grid what was created for me by Dulcea and the Nathadians so long ago. Our only chance was to return to the source and see if the Rangers could somehow use the Ninjetti powers to restore our own. None of us were prepared for what actually happened. A - Billy When we arrived on Phaedos, Dulcea identified new creature identities within our own selves. I think we explained the importance of this before but just incase- the essence of a Power Ranger's ability to control external forces through mutual understanding comes from energy measured only in the dimension of thought. So the more that this thought aspect of our powers can be readily linked to our own human thoughts, the more powerful is our ability to draw on and control the external energy we receive in morphed mode. A - Catherine I'm new here, but I think what Billy is trying to say is that it's easier for me to think of myself as a crane when in morphed mode than a human- it means we can control just about everything. The problem now for me is that I have inherited Kim's beast, and as a result I cannot control the cranezord at all. Ninjor says it will be necessary for me to go and find my own identity in order to gain the respect of a zord created with a like beast personality. I dont know if this means returning to Phaedos or whether Ninjor can do it or what. Ninjor is a pest sometimes, he never tells us what he's thinking. A - Zordon The Rangers are now using what we call the Shogunzords. It's totally ironic, but Zedd found them. Because of the Nathadian connection we were able to reverse the controls on them permanently. Ninjor knows where they came from, I believe they may have come from Ninjor's home planet actually. As usual, he's not talking. Still, they are an excellent design nore than capable of warding off Zedd's current attacks. Alpha here has been able to fully link them with our center here. A - Alpha Except for that the computer still reads them as being the old ninjazords, and I get so confused as to which one is which. Oh why can't life get simple again? A - Zordon I have a feeling it will get more complicated before it gets simpler, Alpha. Q - You were speaking of the three different power sources you now have- can you elaborate on that? A - Billy Well, there's the morphing grid itself, which as far as we can tell is an exact copy of our old one but controlled only from the Nathadian Monolith on Phaedos. A - Zordon That is a real benefit because there is no way Zedd or Rita can affect it there. A - Alpha As far as this command center is concerned, it's like the old grid is still there. The computers here react the same way as they did before the old grid was destroyed. Again this can be very confusing as it often gives conflicting warnings of faults which don't exist. A - Billy Then there are the powers we have as Ninjetti Warriors. None of us clearly understand how these work except that they use the same human-beast-mutual understanding bond that our morphed mode does. It was this power that enabled us to somehow reverse time and restore this command center after Ivan had destroyed it. A - Aisha What we never expected on Phaedos was to get our old powers back as Power Rangers. Dulcea explained that we would become ninjetti warriors. I think it is our own willpower coupled with the new powers which restored Zordon's Ranger system. A - Zordon As part of the order of the Meledon, I had long dreamed of being able to tap the nathadian power in the way the Rangers have. The Nathadians were very good at mutual understanding design. The fact that the Ninjazords were still stored on Phaedos was a shock to me. I had heard about them only in legends. A - Alpha It is impossible to monitor the Rangers in Ninjetti mode. None of the instruments here register their existence whenever they transform into the Ninjetti mode. However Ninjor can trace them and monitor them. A - Billy The third power comes from Ninjor's temple. Don't ask me how it works, I do not know. A - Tommy Oh gosh. Billy admitting he doesnt know. Is this being recorded? Q - Billy, you sit here now in morphed mode but with your helmet off. I thought last time you said that was impossible? A - Billy You may remember that last time I said that Zordon was experimenting with a way of removing our helmets in morphed mode. Shortly after your interview we stumbled on an accidental discovery which resulted in us developing a "Standby mode" which is what my body is in at the moment. Basically it's the real me under here, except that the morphing suit has not been swapped back to my civilian clothes. The internal grid support structure however is gone, and so I can remove my helmet. The standby mode also returns all of our body functions to us. Q - OK, now the big question - WHY a Standby mode? A - Zordon Originally we wanted to develop it as a means of confusing the putties. But actually the most useful aspect of standby mode is that it provides the Rangers with a total failsafe against a forced release from their morphed state. As a halfway point, it means if they lose power for any reason, the grid can be disconnected from their physical bodies without pain or danger because the external suit field remains active even when their helmets are off. It was Alpha who made the discovery while we were working on the White Ranger program, and as such we were able to adopt it into all the other Rangers aswell. Oh and one more thing I remember was mentioned last-time. The Ranger's human bodies do not turn weird colours in morphed mode. However if you were to see a morphed Ranger their skin would appear rather wet-looking, because there is an outer aqueous layer imposed by the process. Q - What happened to the Putties? A - Tommy When Zedd came on the scene, he took Rita's putties and changed the way they worked. He reduced their collective interaction which made it much harder to confuse them and reduce the confidence of a group of putties. Turns out the only way to destroy them was literally to smash them to bits. A - Billy The collective interaction for the putties was replaced by something Zedd placed in the "Z" on their chest. If you tried hard enough to hit it then the putty would lose it's ability to hold itself together and just shatter. It was hard to do. Zedd's putties would wear us out much quicker than Rita's. A - Aisha When Ivan Ooze was dug up he "introduced" us to the Tengas. Ivan called them "Tengu" but it seems they are real creatures unlike the putties which are contrived. They come from some distant planet and are well known to Ninjor as the choice of most troublemakers. I guess it's because they're still pretty silly, and it's easy to pull the feathers over their eyes. A - Tommy When Ivan was destroyed we thought the Tengu Warriors had gone with him. But it seems Ivan found out where they came from and got some more. They are totally different to the old Putties because they always work individually in order to try and split us up. They are not fooled they way the old puttles were and the only way to defeat them is to convince them that they are going to get thrashed if they don't run away. A - Aisha We don't fight the Tengas without our powers. And I suggest the same goes for anyone in Angel Grove! We know that before, civilians would occasionally be attacked by Putties and sometimes they would take them on and win. Don't try this with the Tengas, they will rip you apart. Run the other way, very fast and seek shelter. A - Zordon The Tengu Warriors have presented us with the biggest headache I have ever had to deal with. They are real creatures and very difficult to trace with the equipment here. We have to be on top of them instantly or they will injure and kill civilians within seconds. Alpha has developed various new ways of keeping track of the Tengu Warriors. We have placed a ring of sattelites around the earth which give us a picture of Zedd's teleport paths, which he uses to move the Tengu around. However as Angel Grove citizens know so well, Tengu Warriors fly with grace and diligence so our co-ordinates are often wrong. A - Tommy When fighting the Tengas we morph into the Ninjetti forms. In this form we can use a host of powers and illusions related to our beast indentities which can't easily be used when fully morphed as a Power Ranger. The tradeoff is of course that the Ninjetti forms have virtually no defensive capability. If a Tenga hits us, then it's our human body they're hitting, and we usually come away even more bruised than we did when we took the Putties on with no powers at all. A - Zordon The Morphed mode of a Power Ranger was designed for dealing with illusionary beasts and monsters. Since the Tengas exist in reality with no external power source from Zedd, Rita or anyone else, fighting them as a morphed power ranger can be more of a liability than an asset. The main problem that we still have is that as soon as the Rangers move to adopt their Ninjetti forms, they literally vanish from our instruments here. We can track Billy's communicators though, and this is the only way we can know where they are or teleport them away. Q - How does Ninjor get here? A - Billy In matters regarding Ninjor- we have no idea. Alpha has done some studies while Ninjor is around, and found that he is using much the same morphing grid scheme that we used to before becoming Ninjetti. He must have a teleporter and some other gear on his home planet. I have no idea where it gets it's energy from though, we believe he too succeeded in Ninjetti mastery yonks ago. A - Zordon That is correct Billy, Ninjor is a Ninjetti Warrior. Ninjor was on the council of the Order of the Meledon just as Dulcea and Myself were. However the others would forever ignore him because of his odd secret ways. It was Ninjor who had a hand in trapping Ivan Ooze on Earth. Q - Why does Earth, and Angel Grove in particular, seem to be the centre of the universe? A - Zordon Well the reason for that is complicated. Actually historically it is not very central to where all the trouble used to happen back in the Meledon days. The main reason why Earth got into trouble, and why I came here, was because of Rita. The trouble followed her, and I have no idea why she came here. It's been band-aid solutions ever since that time, and it seems one legacy of the past becomes the next problem. Ivan came to Earth chasing Finster, if I remember. As for Angel Grove, well that's because the Command Center is here. Sorry. It could have been anywhere. Q - Kat, how is it that you can change into a a ..cat? A - Kat My mates at school in Australia always said I was a bit of a cat, actually. But I think it's another one of those crazy spinoffs from the Nathadian Ninjetti powers, like the same ones that allowed the Rangers to restore Zordon and the Command Center after Ivan destroyed it. Somehow me becoming a Ninjetti restored that part of Rita's original spell on me. What is crazy is that at the moment Im supposed to be a Crane, because that was Kim's beast identity. It's like who's who in the Zoo, you know? A - Tommy As far as we can tell, Kat will have to go back to Dulcea and become a cat under the Ninjetti form. Or mabe not. I don't know, Zordon doesn't, and Ninjor's no help in these matters. For now, Kat's the Pink Ranger and it seems to work. A - Zordon My Power Ranger system allowed for a fairly easy transition in team members because I allocated them with a beast link which I decided on. With the Ninjetti, it's down to the reaction between the monolith units and the person seeking the power. The upshot is that they are that much more powerful and in control, but it makes housekeeping a bit of a mess. I was never totally sold on the idea, even back in the Meledon days, when literally everyone wanted to become a Ninjetti. Unfortunately when Ivan came on the scene we had no choice, it was Phaedos or Bust. Q - How did Ivan get into the Command Center? A - Alpha He Oozed through the door in his natural form. For some reason in this form the computer did not recognise him as a foreign body until he was already inside and it was too late. A - Zordon The fact that he could enter here like that became known to him just before the Ancient Morphing Masters and Ninjor trapped him. I was not surprised that it would be his first move after escaping. I didn't bet on Zedd and Rita moving so fast to free him. It all happened so fast. A - Billy The other big difference with Ivan was that his monsters, Hornitor and Scorpitron, were not illusions. They were technical constructions just the same as our own zords. Everything they did to Angel Grove was real. A - Aisha What was amazing was that the city was truly evacuated by the time the monsters started hacking away. The Parents were at Ivan's factory and the kids were at Ernie's which are both on the southside of town. Q - What other troubles are you having at the moment? A - Billy The Teleporter. We've only got one, and it's the old one. We need to use it now more than ever before. It builds the Zords and maintains them. It moves us about. It runs all of Alpha's new scanner network. It's been modified so many times to enable us to deal with Zedd's timewarps. It's dying, and we can't go down the mall and buy a replacement, unfortunately. A - Tommy We're all still coming to terms with Kim's not being here. Billy is now the only remaining Ranger who was here on that first day that Rita got free. I guess everything changes. A - Aisha What's amazing is that Zedd and Rita have never even tried to go after them in their new locations and use them as hostages. I can't understand Zedd at all. But still, I don't want him to start thinking that way because we could never fight it. A - Billy Its like Zordon said before. While ever the Power Rangers are protecting Angel Grove, Zedd and Rita won't look any further because their puny minds are totally occupied with the task of getting rid of the Power Rangers. And I used to think that the Cold War was a crazy standoff. Q - The old zords - what happened to them? A - Tommy They were utterly destroyed. The inevitable happened. A - Billy Their element scheme was totally obliterated when the morphing grid collapsed. When the Ninjetti powers gave us the new Ninjazords from Phaedos, we didn't bother about the possibility of restoring the old zords the way we did the command center and Zordon. It would have been impossible anyway because we never really fully understood how they worked. They too were a product of one of Zordon's Meledon friends. Nevertheless we did find that the teleporter contained maintenance backups of them, so we tried using them in the fight for Ninjor. The results you know. A - Aisha When they were destroyed, it was like the last shred of the old was gone. I had no idea I could get so attached to a.. machine. They are more than machines. They are part of us. They are like a horse to it's rider. They become extensions of who we are. The new Shogunzords don't feel that way at the moment though, but it's early days I suppose. I yearn for the day I might be able to restore the Bear from Phaedos. Now that really is a Zord! A - Tommy The only original zord left is Dragonzord- and we can't use him. Q - What about Titanus? A - Billy No, the element scheme from Titanus was used to create Tor, which in turn was destroyed along with the others. Note : at this point, Aisha, Tommy and Catherine departed for prior engagements. Q - Billy, since the others have to leave, could we take a chance to further discuss some of the Power Rangers Technology with yourself and Zordon? A - Billy Yes, I dont see why not. But Ill warn you, Im not as much an expert as I once was. I know very little about how the Ninjetti powers work. Q - Can you begin by outlining differences between what our scientists believe to be true, and what You and Zordon see as the universal way? A - Billy Well, Earth is pretty much on track except that half of the picture is missing. The most commonly misunderstood concept about the universe is that of dimensions. Our scientists believe that this universe can be measured in only four dimensions, but actually it's six. The additional two are known to us as "Thought" and "Movement of Atomic Structure". Naturally the "Thought" dimension is measured in terms of intelligent thought. This can exist on a plane together with the other five to allow us to define things in the universe that Earh scientists do not yet understand. It is this principle which is the basis of illusion, and virtually every magician on the planet knows about it, although they rarely identify and measure it in the way we do here with Alpha's instruments. An illusion is simply a movement in only the fourth and fifth dimensions, being time and thought. Since no movement or definition exists in space, no possible effects on other space defined items can occurr. Understanding thought as a dimension is the basis of most technology here in the Command Center. It is the foundation of what Zordon calls "Mutual understanding", the method in which we can mentally become one with our Power Ranger identities, gain the respect of the Zords, and perform most of the functios we do in morphed mode. Then there is "Movement of Atomic Structure", the sixth dimension. This dimension is measured in sub-atomic definitions which can in turn only be seen by creating measurement instruments defined as an illusion and not measured in space. The sixth dimension defines the way in which mass and energy can be related without changing the space and time parameters in our universe. You have heard that E=MCsquared. Well yes it does, but the problem is that "C" isn't constant when measured in relation to movement of atomic structure. Earth scientists will baulk at this, but it's true. Using the high level mathematics which Alpha is rather good at, we can define "C" as anything we want, and thus control energy and matter and convert it back and forth at will. We can also do this outside the dimension of time, and that's how the teleporter works. If you are totally confused, thats good because you're going to get even more so. Just when you thought there were only six dimensions, then Zedd, Rita, Ninjor, Dulcea and the Nathadians come along. What we find is that our existing universe with it's six dimensions can be "modulated" to superimpose non-real dimensions over the real ones. Alpha has records of over seven thousand different additional dimensions which have been defined or "overlayed" over the milenia. There are probably many, many more. They come, go, are created and destroyed as their inventors come and go and change things. The dimensions are overlayed on existing dimensions by modulating the existing dimensions in various frequencies and using the three modulation techniques currently used to create radio waves on earth, being amplitude, frequency and phase modulation. The whole science is called "Multi-Dim Mechanics", and the maths is high power stuff, but it's fantastic fun. The old Morphing Grid was a multidim creation. The Ninjetti power is similar except it has some very interesting time variants which have given us tons of added abilities along with the synbiotic animal nature ability. A simple example might be to create a device which measures time, say a clock. Then take that measurement and conduct a mathematical calculation on it which modulates the initial value by some amount. Then you can affect a related dimension using the result whilst the original remains unaltered. This is how every single illusion that Rita and Zedd come up with, works. Of course the difference with Ivan was that he didn't use this strategy but simply played it very simple like we do. The result was that we were completely unprepared. Q - So how does the Teleporter work in this regard? A - Billy The Teleporter first maps the existence of all atomic structure over time in a defined co-ordinate space. It then creates a substrate matter field by modulating time, the field is itself modulated by thought, either Ours or Alpha's. If it's ours then the color of our beast nature will be reflected in the field. If Alpha's or Tommy's, it'll be white since neither of them were created within the older Power Ranger setup that the morphing masters defined. This is one of the reasons why our new Ranger could only be White. The color is important because this is the carrier frequency for the second sideband on the thought dimension, where our "soul" is carried within a teleport. Without that thought control we, or whoever was in the field, would die instantly because we would be frozen in time. The rest is fairly simple. The teleporter replaces the matter inside the field with something appropriate, usually air. The matter that was there becomes pure energy which can be easily moved about the place using factorisation sequencing, which is basically a domino effect defined in atomic structure only. As the teleporter changes the coordinates, the domino effect continues forward, moving the entire field which can be seen as the color streaks you see when we teleport. Finally at the other end the process is reversed, well more or less, and there we are. The coordinate calculations are incredibly complex though. The entire command center here is the coordinate calculation point for the teleporter. I imagine the Nathadian Monolith must have a similar arrangement because we were able to get back here from Phaedos before our teleporter was repaired. The Ninjetti Powers also handle the morph into our ninjetti mode which as Alpha has said, is not traceable from here. But it's the same basic technology underneath. Q - Where is the Command center powered from now the grid has been destroyed? A - Billy it is powered by the Ninjetti powers from Phaedos. It is essentially one dimensional grid scheme feeding another, as far as we can tell. Its great because Zedd has absolutely no control over it. The old Morphing Grid to some extent drew some of it's power from the enemy. In times of conflict that is good because it weakens the enemy however when we are having problems, it used to be a real pain as it would prevent us from breaking through into some of Zedd's weird dimensions. To my knowlege, the Nathadians have not yet sent us a bill for the power. If they do we'll give it to Ninjor. Q - Is there any chance that the Earth scientific community will discover the basis of what you are describing here? A - Billy Nope. It's a catch '22, like what came first, the chicken or the egg stuff. There's no way you can start to understand the technology without already having access to the measuring equipment which itself can only be created using advanced six dim mechanics. Our secret is safe. What I have told you is useless without access to here. At this point Aisha returned, this time with Rocky and Adam. Q - Have you dealt with the problem you were having before with your parents? A - Billy Well yes, and no. My mom knows, my Dad doesn't. Kim's Dad knows, but her mom doesn't. Kat's parents don't know. A - Aisha My mom knows. A - Rocky My olds don't know yet. A - Adam All my Mom knows is that Im a Frog. She doesn't know Im a Ranger. A - Zordon The Rangers have been dealing with these problems for a while. Experience has shown that each case is different and I treat everyone as individuals. A - Alpha Im afaid Im going to have to terminate your little talk here guys and gals, there's something wrong over here, and I don't like it. At this point, the interview was terminated to be recommenced at a later date. END